Pat Buchanan represents the scummy core of modern conservatism.[ED.: I guess the term "paleo-conservative" and its meaning is completely lost on this person.]The only way you'll distance yourself from him is to cease being conservative entirely.

Okay, lefties. Never mind that Pat Buchanan and most Americans calling themselves "conservative" parted company years ago. Never mind that, in many ways, he has more in common with the extremes on the left than he does with most people on the right (as another Vox Nova commenter (again, NOT one of the blog's contributors) put it, Buchanan is "a good example of how the extreme Right runs smack into the extreme Left").

Two can play at your snotty little guilt-by-association game. Christopher Blosser has a couple of posts at Catholics in the Public Square providing textbook examples of the routine nonsense "your side" engages in. Nice friends you guys on the "Catholic left" have there:

I read the whole Buchanan article and find nothing wrong with it. My ancestors were forced here because of genocide committed by the English, and then they had to live under the most inhumane conditions for the robber barons, who were in most part of English ancestry, but all in all that toil was the best thing that ever happened to the Irish people. And one other note, Catholics are still targeted for discrimination. I’ll be willing to bet Pastor Wright has said some of the same slurs as Pastor Hagee! But I digress…

I have gone back and forth through the years with Mr. Buchanan, but one thing I have found is that if one takes a single line out of the whole it can easily be contrived as mean spirited or bigoted. However, when you read the whole I have to say he is right on the mark… as he is with this article. Yes, slavery is the best thing that happened to those people because since these people were captured in battle by other Africans they may have faired worst by being sold to Muslim slave traders, which still goes on today, or worst, executed as was the Chantee practice. The unfortunate aspect of our history is that western civilization slavery end last in the United States and not sooner, and that for another 100 years our ancestors treated them worst than slaves. But we do not live in that time, nor do my ancestors in Britain. We are here today.

I read Buchanan daily, or as often has he publishes. He is a good Roman Catholic, US Citizen, and a solid voice of traditional conservatives grounded in the writings of Russell Kirk. I read nothing in that article that I have not read before by Thomas Sowell, Armstrong Williams or Walter E. Williams; the difference was that it was Pat Buchanan saying it.

Yeah, the article does not praise the institution of slavery, it merely points out the truism that blacks are better off in today's America than if they had remained in their third-world African homes.

Same could be said for many folks whose ancestors came here in freedom, including my Irish and English forbears. Even our Latino immigrants acknowledge by their arduous journies here that it's better to start on the bottom in America than stay in a festering third world nation.

Dittos with Mike and Steve,PJB is merely what all conservatives used to be (and some still are).

Policraticus - have you considered the possibility that Rich is dismissing your site out of sincere disagreement and is posting his opinion (as opposed to his full reasoned argument)?

If sweeping caricature and dismissal of the opinions of 12 contributors is how Rich voices his "sincere disagreement," then I response remains ever more pertinent. The irony of playing the "logical fallacies" card within the scope of logical fallacy!

"So, I don't know where that leaves me. I self-identify as a "conservative", but short of, say, Sam Brownback, there seem to be precious few in public life who actually represent what I believe."Then why don't you just admit that you've become a bit too Catholic to keep up this farce?

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About Me

I'm a convert to the Catholic Church who was raised Southern Baptist. I became Catholic because of my belief in and devotion to the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. * I am a graduate of Baylor University and the University of Virginia School of Law. From September 1998 until September 2005, I served as Mayor of the Town of Columbia, Virginia (the smallest incorporated town in Virginia). * My wife and I have four beautiful children: two boys, ages 11 and 9, and two girls, ages 7 and 6. * My 3 primary interests are the Catholic Church, my family, and law/politics. I hope that this blog will foster enlightened discussion about the roles played by the institutions of religion, family, and state in our daily lives. * I have placed this blog under the protection of St. Thomas More, martyr, and patron of lawyers, judges, civil servants, politicians, statesmen, and large families (not to mention troubled marriages).

Pray that, for the glory of God and in the pursuit of His justice, I may be able in argument, accurate in analysis, keen in study, correct in conclusion, loyal to clients, honest with all, courteous to adversaries, trustworthy with confidences, courageous in court. Sit with me at my desk and listen with me to my clients' tales. Read with me in my library and stand always beside me so that today I shall not, to win a point, lose my soul.

Pray that my family may find in me what yours found in you: friendship and courage, cheerfulness and charity, diligence in duties, counsel in adversity, patience in pain -- their good servant, and God's first. AMEN.

Dear Scholar and Martyr, it was not the King of England but you who were the true Defender of the Faith. Like Christ unjustly condemned, neither promises nor threats could make you accept a civil ruler as head of the Christian Church.

Perfect in your honesty and love of truth, grant that lawyers and judges may imitate you and achieve true justice for all people. AMEN.

"Give me the Grace Good Lord, to set the world at naught; to set my mind fast upon Thee and not to hang upon the blast of men's mouths. To be content to be solitary. Not to long for worldly company but utterly to cast off the world and rid my mind of the business thereof."